Author: Reluctant Retiree

Living in FL and enjoying life.
Posted in Cozy Mysteries

The Inn at Holiday Bay: Haunting in the Hallway

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

A heartwarming cozy mystery series about losing everything, taking a chance, and starting again.

After suffering a personal tragedy Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos. What Abby thought she needed was alone time to heal. What she ended up with was, an inn she never knew she wanted, a cat she couldn’t seem to convince to leave, and a new family she’d never be able to live without.

In book 5 in the series, the new bank president, who happens to be the son of the man who founded the community bank, is found dead and buried in his own grave. The man was not popular in the small community after making a lot of changes with his fathers passing and the list of possible suspects who might want him dead is extensive.

Meanwhile, it is October and the inn is hosting Halloween themed events. The haunted weekends are just for fun but when guests report hearing noises in the hallway, Abby wonders if the inn might actually be haunted for real.

Posted in Daily Thought

Verse of the Day November 6, 2025

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Posted in #BookTours

The Mars Man

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Three StarZ corporation ships are sent to forge a new civilization on Mars. But when a massive solar flare cuts off all communication, no one knows what is happening on Mars. The only one who does – Commander John Santo – arrived back in an escape capsule: and he has disappeared.


The Mars Man

by Charles Anthony

Genre: Dystopian Science Fiction



In a world grappling with a climate crisis, a shrinking population and dwindling resources on Earth, billionaire Ezra Graff has founded StarZ. Its mission: begin the first Martian colony. The three hundred pioneers of The Mars Man are the first to venture forth, forging a new civilization on the rust-colored expanse of Mars. But when a massive solar flare cuts off all communication, no one knows what is happening on Mars. The only one who does know is the single occupant of an escape capsule that crashed into the Atlantic ocean one year after the colony’s founding: Commander John Santo. To get the full story, they must find him. With time running out until the second wave launches for Mars, only Commander John Santo knows what is happening to the first colony as they grapple with the harsh realities of their new home, confronting the strange environment outside and the forces of evil within.

The Mars Man weaves a tapestry of adventure, intrigue, and human resilience against the backdrop of a planet that challenges every notion of survival. With richly developed characters and a narrative that balances suspense and wonder, Anthony creates an immersive experience that will leave readers hungry to keep reading.

 

**On Sale Nov 9-16!**

 Amazon * Bookbub * Goodreads



Charles Anthony was born in the Hunter Valley, Australia, in 1990. He moved to New Zealand in 2017, obtained a Master of Laws degree from the University of Auckland and then moved to the Waikato where he works as a lawyer and is actively involved in his community.

In the summer of 2021 he began writing. Working in the evenings and on the weekends, he produces short stories, poems and novels. In 2025 he launched his first novel, the Mars Man, on Amazon.

Charles Anthony lives in Hamilton, New Zealand.

 

Website * Facebook *Instagram * YouTube * Amazon



Follow the tour HERE for special content and a $10 giveaway!


Enter The Mars Man Giveaway


Posted in #BookTours

Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

“[The] definitive history of the U.S. Navy SEALs and their forefathers” (Master Chief Bill Bruhmuller (USN, Ret.), founding member of SEAL Team two).
Written with the unprecedented cooperation of the Naval Special Warfare community, this vivid and definitive history of the U.S. Navy SEALs reveals the inside story behind the greatest combat operations of America’s most celebrated warriors.
New York Times–bestselling authors Dick Couch—a former SEAL—and William Doyle chart the SEALs’ story, from their origins in the daring Naval Combat Demolition Teams, Underwater Demolition Teams, Scouts and Raiders commando units, and OSS Operational Swimmers of World War II to their coming of age in Vietnam and rise to glory in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11.
Illustrated with forty pages of photographs and based on exclusive interviews with more than 100 U.S. frogmen (including multiple Medal of Honor recipients), here is “the first comprehensive history of the special operations force” (Military.com).

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Written with the unprecedented cooperation of the Naval Special Warfare community, here is the definitive history of the U.S. Navy SEALs, a thrilling chronicle that reveals the inside story behind the greatest combat operations of our nation’s most celebrated warriors. New York Times bestselling authors Dick Couch—former SEAL, Vietnam veteran, and highly respected military writer—and award-winning author William Doyle draw on exclusive interviews with more than 100 special operators (including multiple Medal of Honor recipients), as well as thousands of pages of declassified documents to create a vivid, unparalleled portrait of the SEALs in action.

Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story charts the dramatic evolution of the frogmen from their origins in World War II, when the daring Naval Combat Demolition Teams, Underwater Demolition Teams, Scouts and Raiders commando units, and OSS Operational Swimmers proved instrumental at D-Day, Okinawa, and many other critical campaigns. In the Korean War, the Navy UDTs cleared mines and scouted landing sites ahead of the main American forces. After their official founding in 1962 by order of President John F. Kennedy and early covert operations in Cuba, the SEALs came of age in the jungles of Vietnam, where they specialized in executing the most daring missions. Couch and Doyle trace their transformation in the 1980s and 1990s—when America’s special operations teams were centralized under the U.S. Special Operations Command—including untold accounts from Panama, Grenada, Somalia, and the first Gulf War. Finally, we follow their rise to preeminence in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11.

The SEALs and their forefathers have shaped the tides of history; from fighting Hitler to eliminating Osama bin Laden, the frogmen of the U.S. Navy are the spearhead of American military might: the toughest, most highly trained, best equipped—and most invisible—band of warriors. Now many of these quiet professionals, speaking for the first time, reveal what it’s like to be the men living on the knife’s edge. Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story gives these legendary warriors the epic chronicle they deserve.

Posted in #BookTours

A Wyoming Family Holiday

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

A Wyoming Family Holiday: A Clean and Uplifting Romance
Virginia McCullough
(Back to Adelaide Creek, #5)
Published by: Harlequin Heartwarming
Publication date: October 28th 2025
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Holiday, Romance, Women’s Fiction

Can saving a town landmark…

Restore her faith in love?

When attorney Sloan Lancaster returns to Adelaide Creek to care for his father, he’s shocked at Winding Creek Rehab and Care Center’s run-down state. He considers moving his dad but is drawn to his high school crush Bethany, in charge of the facility’s restoration. Moved by Bethany’s community spirit and her adorable young daughter, Heidi, Sloan makes an anonymous donation to the center as the holidays bring them all closer. But when Sloan’s identity is revealed, Bethany pulls away, anxious about conflict of interest. Can she overcome her fears to embrace Sloan’s support—and build the loving family she’s always wanted?

From Harlequin Heartwarming: Wholesome stories of love, compassion and belonging.

Back to Adelaide Creek

Book 1: The Rancher’s Wyoming Twins
Book 2: The Doc’s Holiday Homecoming
Book 3: His Wyoming Surprise
Book 4: Finding His Wyoming Sweetheart
Book 5: A Wyoming Family Holiday

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Apple Books / Kobo

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EXCERPT:

Sloan Lancaster raised the hood of his jacket and raced through the downpour, skirting the water overflowing dips and deep potholes in the asphalt parking lot. This, plus the rundown brick and wood exterior, was all he needed to conclude that the Winding Creek Rehab and Care Center was past its prime. Especially dreary was the aging paint job, once white, but now a dull, dirty gray. Sloan summed up his first impression of this facility in one word: neglected.

As he ducked into the hands-free revolving door a commotion in the lobby caught his attention. Women and men in scrubs or lab coats were pushing and pulling furniture across the carpeted floor, while a couple of burly guys in maintenance uniforms dragged an oversized tarp into the far corner of the room where rainwater ran down the wall.

Two women a few feet in front of him struggled to pull a couch across the middle of the lobby. He approached from behind and called out, “Wait, let me help with that. Tell me where you want it.”

A woman spun around. “Thanks. We can use the help.” Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “Sloan?”

“Bethany?” He struggled to find his next words as he grasped the wooden armrest on one end. “I’d know you anywhere.” It was true. He hadn’t seen her since high school and she’d barely changed at all.

Not the time to ask a lot of questions. He made his early morning workouts pay off as he dragged the couch to the only empty spot on the other side of the lobby big enough to accommodate it. The space was already filled with a hodgepodge of tables and armchairs that had escaped the leaking roof and ceilings.

Bethany pushed the couch from the other end. Her expression turned serious as she straightened up and put her hands on her hips. “You’re here to see your dad, I assume. Medical transport brought him here a couple of hours ago.”

Her burgundy pantsuit and crisp tailored white shirt gave her a professional look in the style of the women lawyers at his firm. That led Sloan to guess that his old friend Bethany Hoover was an administrator in this place, where, for better or worse, his dad was now a patient. The worn out exterior and general disarray in the lobby weren’t filling him with positive feelings about that.

The opposite, in fact.

Author Bio:

A writer all her adult life, Virginia McCullough has had the opportunity to write the stories of her heart in her novels, including Girl in the Spotlight, the first book in her Two Moon Bay series for Harlequin Heartwarming. (Book 2 is scheduled for release in January 2018). Her award-winning romance and women’s fiction titles include The Jacks of Her Heart, Amber Light, Greta’s Grace, The Chapels on the Hill, and Island Healing.

Born and raised in Chicago, Virginia has been lucky enough to develop her writing career in many locations, including the coast of Maine, the mountains of North Carolina, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and currently, Northeast Wisconsin. She started her career in nonfiction, first writing articles and then books as a ghostwriter and coauthor. She’s written more than 100 books for physicians, business owners, professional speakers and many others with information to share or a story to tell.

Virginia’s books feature characters who could be your neighbors and friends. They come in all ages and struggle with everyday life issues in small-town environments that almost always include water—oceans, lakes, or rivers. The mother of two grown children, you’ll find Virginia with her nose a book, walking on trails or her neighborhood street, or she may be packing her bag to take off for her next adventure. And she’s always working on another story about hope, healing, and second chances.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram / Bookbub / Newsletter


GIVEAWAY!

A Wyoming Family Holiday Blitz

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